T. H. White | Criticism

Mr. White's theme [in The Goshawk] is as old as Babylon but his allusiveness is of the twentieth century. He has the gift of words, which calls for as much effort to control as he who has it not expends in striving after expression. The book is about the training of a hawk, a very ancient art: there is still a freemasonry of falconers—austringers—scattered about the world. Yet, on putting the book down one feels that the goshawk, though central to it, has been secondary to one's enjoyment—that the tension that has held throughout the 200 pages is, one may almost say, the moral aura of this difficultly achieved rapport between civilized man and slaying bird. That Mr. White should devote himself completely to a hawk, going sleepless, losing count of time, exacting his ultimate of patience, would seem freakish in a world of other tensions...